Sunday, February 9, 2014

You're Next for me was one of those cases of overhype in the horror world. Don't get me wrong, I liked this flick. But I kept hearing buzz of it being the best horror movie released all year, and I don't know if I would go that far. I think my overarching issue with this movie was that the characters bugged the fuck out of me. Like everyone was completely useless except for Erin (Sharni Vinson) who just so happened to have grown up in a survivalist colony, much to the chagrin of her attackers.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's start at the beginning. A rich family gets together at a secluded house to celebrate their parents' anniversary. They also bring along their respective significant others, making for a sizable group. Randomly, one of the dinner guests, Tariq (Ti West!) gets shot by an arrow through the window and things quickly begin to go haywire, as masked intruders invade the house, bent on death and destruction. But instead of getting their shit together and fighting back, most of the people in the house are dead weight, whining and sleeping when they should be helping. This amusing uselessness had to be intentional, because it was pretty funny. Erin comes out of nowhere to be a total badass, while the others get picked off one by one.

We don't get a motive from the masked killers at first, but the deaths are quite brutal. However, Erin fights back just as hard...yay meat tenderizer! Her "traps" are so similar to Home Alone that Scream King and I thought it had to be part of the whole cheekiness of this plot. The reason for the melee, which is revealed sort of in two parts, brought everything together nicely, but leaves you to wonder how they ever thought this shit would work out in the end.

You're Next was a fun little gory romp, but I can't say I'd be in a rush to watch it again, or god forbid a sequel. I do enjoy these movies that are a little intentionally silly, but I'm hoping we see some more realistic scares come out of 2014.